52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 47

Polaroid Land Camera

This week is Thanksgiving, so the writing prompt is Thankful. The thing that I am most thankful for, from both a personal and a genealogical perspective, is the fact that my dad was a person who embraced new technology - at least to a certain extent. Because of this, I am blessed to have old photos of my family, as well as his military days in WWII, because he was comfortable using a camera. He got a Polaroid Land Camera in the early 1960s, and we were all amazed when the photos popped out of it.

But the best thing he did was to purchase an 8mm movie camera in the 1950s. While he did not shoot a lot of film, I am so fortunate to have in my possession five reels that have survived the years. Included were the 50th wedding anniversaries of both sets of my grandparents! Recently I had the films converted to an mp4 format, using a local service provider. The films were in decent shape considering they haven’t exactly been stored properly the past 50 plus years.

The film is priceless to me, and to have the opportunity to have my parents, grandparents, and other loved ones brought back to life is such a treat. My goal is to edit the footage, removing film that is too light to be distinguishable. I also want to add still photos, text and music to the final product. I did a little of this before I went to Cincinnati in October, creating one mp4 for the Kubler relatives to see and a separate one for my Crusham family. But for my siblings I will make one continuous film that can be shared with them. Hopefully they will treasure the memories as much as I do.

Thanks, Dad - and Happy Heavenly Thanksgiving!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2

This week's writing prompt is Favorite Photo. That is certainly short and to the point, but wow! Which photo should I choose? After my father died in 2004, I inherited the photo books that he and my mom had put together throughout the years. Some of the photographs I have scanned and filed on my computer, so I searched through those for inspiration. I picked the one that made me smile as I received some less than desired health news this week.

Dad, my brother Joe and me

This photograph was taken at our home in Chicago about 1958. My father had purchased a Lionel train set for his oldest son, probably in the late '40s. My older brother Roy had aplastic anemia and was quite sickly. I think dad got the train to cheer him up. Though Roy died in 1950, five years before I was born, dad continued to add to the train set over the years. There was a second train, and while I don't remember the brand name, all of the cars were made of silver metal.

By the time we moved to Des Moines in 1960, a ping pong table in the basement provided the perfect base to set up tracks, buildings, tunnels, people and animals, trees, etc. The trains were not left up year round, so it was like discovering a new toy every time dad set them up.

What I love most about the picture is the sheer joy on my face. My dad worked hard to provide for my mom and my three siblings, so to have him down on the floor playing with us such a treat. I think he got as big a kick out of the train sets as we did, though he certainly must have experienced some moments of sadness each time he put them together.

When my daughter was in 6th grade we attended a literacy night at her school. Her English teacher had a group of parents and students in the cafeteria talking about poetry. He threw out the writing prompt "childhood memory" and gave us five minutes to compose a poem. Here is what I came up with:

train poem

After I read the poem aloud, it was amazing how many parents came up to me to reminisce about their childhood train sets. Apparently I wasn't the only one who carried childhood train memories in their heart. And isn't it wonderful to have photos that can transport us back to a different time and place?

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 1

This year I am going to shift my weekly posts from a focus on my memories and the Family Search 52 Stories project to stories about my ancestors. A Facebook post by the Hamilton County Genealogical Society brought my attention to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. Amy Johnson Crow started the challenge several years ago in an effort to encourage genealogists to write and share information about their ancestors.

Very general writing prompts are provided for the 52 Ancestors challenge. For the first week of 2018, the prompt is Start. Obviously that leaves the door wide open in terms of what I can write about. Do I want to start with me? Or how about starting with the oldest person alive in my family? Or perhaps the person farthest back in my family tree?

My mother is the infant in this picture, taken in 1920 in
Cincinnati, OH. Also in the photo are her father Michael
Crusham, mother Mary (Mayme) Crusham, and sisters
Marie and Stella.

As I pondered these questions, I decided to write about how I got started in researching my ancestors.  Like most people, I remember hearing my older relatives talk about growing up, telling stories about their parents and other people in the family. Also like most people, I paid little attention to what they were discussing. It seemed boring to me as a child. One of my cousins, however, got interested in genealogy while in her 30s, and drew up a small family tree of the Crusham family. This was way before the computer provided much help in the way of charts, and long before the Internet offered meaningful information to family historians. She researched the old-fashioned way, pouring through old records at the local repositories. My mom gave me a copy of the tree in July of 1989 when she and my dad stopped at our house on their way to visit my brother in Colorado.

That was the last time I saw my mom alive as she was killed in a car accident on the way home from their Colorado trip. Suddenly I realized that an important link between me and my ancestors had been severed. I could no longer ask my mom questions about growing up, her parents, or what it was like to be a new mother alone when her husband was sent to the China-Burma-India Theater during WWII. How I wished I had listened more closely to the stories when I was young! In 1989 I was 33 years old with a son who was 4 and would grow up not remembering the most important woman in my life.

Last photo taken of me and my son, Andy,
with my mom in April of 1989.

My mother's death sparked in me a desire to actively research my family while other, older members of the clan were still alive. I have picked their brains, listened to their stories, and done my best to document where we came from. I've had the privilege of visiting a few ancestral towns abroad, meeting distant relatives along the way. Most of all, I've gained a greater sense of who I am, due in no small part to the tenacity and sacrifices made by my ancestors.

As a side note, it is fitting that this post is being made on January 6th, which would have been my mom's 98th birthday. Happy heavenly birthday, mom!

Küblers to America

Büsserach, Switzerland

Thus ends the chronicle of my branch of the Kübler family from Büsserach, Switzerland to America. I've traveled to Büsserach and walked the villages, inhaled the mountain air and seen the beautiful  countryside through my own eyes. I've met some of the descendants of Vinzenz Joseph Kübler's siblings and other extended family. I even slept in the building where Vinzenz made the exchange of money for his land so that he could come to America with his family. Despite all that, I cannot conceive of what it must have felt like to take a last look at everyone and everything you have ever known and loved and say a final good-bye. How tough was his life that he would risk everything to take an arduous one way trip on a sailing vessel with his young family to an unknown country and an unknown future?

I never had the opportunity to know him, of course, as this was long before I was born. I barely knew my grandfather, Joseph Kubler. Although I was 13 when he died, traveling from Des Moines to Cincinnati in the 1960s was not an easy trip due to the lack of interstates. Busy, two-lane highways meant the drive was long and often slow, so visits back "home" were limited to once a year at best. Our family always stayed with my mom's parents, never at the Kubler house. We would go over to see Grandma and Grandpa Kubler when we were in town, however. They were nice to me, but I could sense the closer relationship that the cousins who lived in Cincinnati had with them. I always felt a bit like an outsider.

My memories of Grandma Kubler are much clearer, as I was 23 when she passed. She was kind and friendly, and a great cook. It was always a treat to be able to have a meal with her. It seemed like she was always in the kitchen when we visited. I'm grateful for her cooking skills as she passed them along to my dad. Though my mom was always the cook in our family during the week, on the weekends my dad nearly always helped out in the kitchen. Once he retired, cooking and cleaning were activities he shared with my mom.

Like most young people, I never sat down with my grandparents to get their stories. By the time I got interested in genealogy, following the death of my mother, all my grandparents were gone. I have tried to make up for that by talking with my older relatives each time I go to Cincinnati for a visit, and by participating in the Family History Writing Challenge so that I get the information placed somewhere besides my genealogy software. I have a long way to go, but at least I am taking steps to get there.

Dad and me circa 1958

I forgot to include in the last post the poem I wrote for my dad when he died, so it appears below. This is a scan of the original I placed beside his casket in the funeral home, somewhat wavy from the tears and snowstorm it was carried through. I have written poetry since early childhood, but I don't share it very often. I wrote a poem for Aunt Marie (my mother's sister) for her funeral, and another for my sister-in-law Lynn to express my feelings and hopefully console my brother, Joseph. So it seemed fitting to put my thoughts on paper for my dad. He was not always an easy man to be around, but I never doubted his love for me. It's an odd feeling when your second parent dies, as if you are now an orphan. The two people who were responsible for your very existence, and the anchor for your entire family are no longer a phone call or relatively short drive away. Pieces of my heart were buried with each one of them, but I am extremely happy that I have the photographs and memories to tuck away in those empty spaces.

Dad's Poem

A House History Book

house history book

There are many ways to get your book into print. If you have a story that relies heavily on photos and you only need a couple of copies of the finished product, then one of the online photo book services may be just what you need. I have used shutterfly.com and snapfish.com with good results. I recently finished a photo book on the research I have compiled on the history of my house. There are many photos in the book, both historic ones that I obtained from descendants of the previous owner as well as pictures I have taken over the years as we have made changes to the home.

I only needed one copy of the finished product for myself, so with the coupon I had the book was fairly inexpensive. These two companies, as well as their competitors, are always running specials so there is no reason to ever pay full price for a book. In fact, through the years I have received many coupons for free books.

The quality of both companies is comparable, so it may come down to the length of the book in terms of which one you select. Snapfish allows a lot more pages, so be sure to compare the specifications of the companies to see which one will fit your needs.

Creating a Photo Book

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

In 2014 the St. Louis region celebrated the 250th birthday of the City of St. Louis. A major portion of the festivities involved the placement of 250 (plus a few to grow on) fiberglass birthday cakes around the area. Painted by local artists, the cakes were placed primarily in locations of historical significance. The Cakeway to the West adventure was part scavenger hunt and part history lesson. It took me to places in the St. Louis area that I never knew existed as well as locations I had heard about but never visited. At the end of the journey, over 4,000 photographs had taken up residence on my hard drive, and three of them ended up in a juried art show! I knew that I wanted to put together a book that would have one cake on each page, meaning I was looking at printing a 250+ page, full-color book.

The online print on demand companies such as Amazon's CreateSpace or Lightning Source have gotten poor marks for the quality of color photos in their books. There are, however, numerous options for producing photo books online. They are mostly designed for casual photographers who want to turn their photos into a keepsake book - not one that they intend to sell. While these services produce photo books you can be proud of, they are an extremely expensive option. Most of them have page limitations that ruled them out for this project. I put together a comparison of the most popular companies.

photo book comparison  

From the illustration you can see that there was only one company that was capable of producing the desired number of pages for my book. With Blurb, you can either produce your book online, which is how the other services work, or you can download their software and work on the book on your computer directly. While I have used both Shutterfly and Snapfish in the past, I have never worked with Blurb before. I tried both their online service as well as the software, and I never quite got the hang of either one of them. Trying to add additional text boxes or photos to the pages was difficult, at least for me. In the end I decided that because this project was so immense, I did not want to take the time for the learning curve Blurb was presenting. I do know other people who have used the service and have seen some of their books, and Blurb does offer a high quality product.

I went with Snapfish due to the fact that they offer a maximum of 150 pages, so I knew I could get my book done in two volumes. Both volumes are now complete, and I have received Volume I. The book looks great, and I am pleased with the result. If you are looking to create a photo book of your own adventures, there are some good choices available for you.

Cakeway to the West book cover

Cakeway to the West interior page

Cakeway to the West interior page

Family History Month Wrap-up

Busserach, Switzerland

I am wrapping up Family History Month and the month of October by taking all the notes from my recent Family Tree Tours trip to Germany and Switzerland and putting them into Scrivener. If you are unfamiliar with this writing program, I posted about it a while back. While I tried to stay organized on the trip, sometimes I made notes in a small notebook because I didn't have my iPad readily available, but there are also notes on the iPad. In addition I emailed home almost daily, and I tried to post frequently on my other blog. So I want to pull all of those things together and have them in one place. It is easy to copy and paste the documents into Scrivener, and then I can go back and remove any duplicate information and clean things up. Once I have done that my plan is to go back and do a little research on the towns and the historical buildings I visited so that I can add a little more "meat" to the story of my trip.

photo book cover

I have almost completed the photo book I am preparing about the trip, as that will be a nice way to give my family and friends an overview of the experience. I know for a fact that none of them want to see and look at all 2,000+ photos that I took! But for myself, I want something that will be more comprehensive. What the end result of that will look like, I am not sure at this point. Once I determine how long it is, I will figure out if it just remains in Scrivener or sees the light of day as an e-book or print book.

Pinterest for Authors

Pinterest page of Kim Wolterman

Recent statistics show that Pinterest is the third-largest social media site, with 104 million visits per month. Facebook clearly leads the way with 7 billion monthly visits, while Twitter comes in second with 182 million visits. Pinterest visitors stay on the site longer than any other social media sites, and users are predominantly females between the ages of 25-44. It is easy to open a Pinterest account, and then you can begin creating your boards and start pinning.

One of the biggest benefits of Pinterest for users is that the system automatically links back to the source of the pinned photo or article. So if you have a board of photos from your blog, for example, when someone clicks on the photo they will be taken to your blog. And if they pin the photo to their Pinterest board, then all of their followers are now potentially exposed to your blog. There are some copyright issues floating around right now, so I mostly pin my own photos or those where I feel proper credit has been attributed to the photos.

Here are some examples of how authors can use Pinterest boards to either assist in the writing process or promote (subtly) their books:

- Show some visual elements from your books, either actual photos from the books or images that inspired you when writing them. For example, since I write about house research, I might want to create a board of photos of historic homes. If you write historical fiction you might have boards of photos from the time period in which you are setting your book.

- Pin the covers of books in your same genre, including your own.

- Pin photos from your book signings or speaking engagements, as well as those you have attended from other authors.

- Get creative. Where do you want to travel? In what location would you rather be writing? How about one for cool libraries?

Pinterest is one more bullet in the social media arsenal for authors. As with other forms of social media, the emphasis should be on "social". Interact with your followers, and find others to follow as well.

Cover Up

I have been giving more thought to the book cover, in particular the back cover copy. I did go ahead and email the CBI Hump Pilots organization, and Jay replied back that he would be happy to read the book and write a comment for the back cover. That is exciting news as I believe it will lend credibility to the story. I have also emailed Harry Lagerstedt of the USS Anderson group to see if he will do the same for me. Since he was actually on the same voyage as my dad, I thought it would be fun to get a quote from him. The Anderson website is unavailable right now, so I hope that doesn't mean something bad has happened. Harry has been so sweet and helpful to me, and I know he is not a youngster. I probably need one more person to provide a quote, but I'm not sure who to approach. Perhaps someone from the Delhi veterans group in Cincinnati since that is where my dad was from.

After I get that all settled, I'll need the back cover designed. Katie did a great job on the front cover, and I can probably email her the information and she can do it from school. Worst case scenario I can hire Camp Pope to do the work for me.

This weekend I will be re-working the photographs and other documents in the book that don't meet the minimum DPI standards. Hopefully this will not be too big of an ordeal. This is when I really wish Katie was still at home to offer some guidance.

G.I. Roy

I've been diligently working on my dad's book about his service in WWII. I have a few more photographs that I want to fit in, then I want to take one final look in my genealogy files to make sure there aren't any other documents that would be appropriate to include. Then I'll print it out and see if everything flows okay. My niece has agreed to read it over since she also talked a bit with my dad about his war years.

In the meantime I have been playing around a bit with Booksmart, which is a free book layout software program I found on the Internet. Obviously the people offering the software are hopeful that you will then upload your book and have them print it, which I may ultimately do. But I have already struggled with getting the program to accept my Word document. Apparently it is not happy that I have the photos and the text in one document. I'll either need to copy and paste, or separate out the photos. Brother...it is always something. This is why the book designers get the big bucks to lay the book out for you. I didn't mind paying for the service on my house research book, but this book is only going to go to a few people in my immediate family. I just can't afford to put any money into design and layout. I really wish that I knew how to use InDesign, but I am afraid the learning curve on that program would drive me batty. We'll see how the template goes first.